LIHUE — When Dr. Thierry Work talks about wildlife disease, his eyes light up. “We’re kind of like CSI for wildlife,” he said. “We try to figure out what’s killing the animals by looking at clues.” Work is a wildlife
LIHUE — When Dr. Thierry Work talks about wildlife disease, his eyes light up.
“We’re kind of like CSI for wildlife,” he said. “We try to figure out what’s killing the animals by looking at clues.”
Work is a wildlife disease specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Honolulu. His name may sound familiar as he is one of a handful of scientists involved in the ongoing study of a coral disease outbreak along Kauai’s North Shore.
Last week, for the first time in 10 years, Work led a workshop on Kauai about wildlife health in terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Hawaii and the Pacific.
About 50 people — mostly biologists — gathered at the State Office Building in Lihue for the day-long presentation, which touched on everything from avian botulism and influenza to diseased sea turtles and coral reefs.
In addition to a number of diseases present around the islands, Work discussed how he and his team at USGS conduct their investigations, as well as how local biologists can make better observations in the field.
Work said partnerships are crucial.
“I’m really a firm believer in this, that when you’re investigating wildlife diseases, it has to be a team effort, with multiple entities involved,” he said. “These problems are really complex. You’re talking about animal behavior, ecology, meteorology, laboratory medicine, all of the scientific tools that are involved.”
Unlike in CSI, Work said scientists like him don’t have the luxury of interviewing patients or witnesses.
“We really have to depend much more on our observational skills,” he said.
It is no secret that animals die. The question is whether the mortality is unusual.
“You don’t want to be calling the cavalry every time an animal dies,” he said.
Work discussed the different infectious and non-infections causes of animal death, as well as the tools he uses in the lab, including pathology, bacteriology and mycology, virology, toxicology, molecular biology, serology and hematology.
Although those tools are powerful, Work said each has its limitations. One of the biggest is cost.
“When someone tells me they think an animal has been poisoned, my first question is how much money they have,” he said.
Unfortunately, Work is often unable to come to a conclusion as to what killed an animal.
“We can’t give you the answer all the time,” he said. “However, we can often tell you what didn’t kill the animal, and that can be just as important.”
Kauai’s killers
In the last 20 years, Work said USGS has received and studied 925 specimens from Kauai, mostly endangered or threatened animals.
“Most of what we look at is birds,” he said. “Followed by invertebrates, fish, mammals and reptiles.”
One big wildlife disease problem in Hawaii is avian botulism, caused by a toxin, which Work described as one of the most potent known to man. In many instances, infected birds quickly become paralyzed and drown.
“We’ve had botulism in the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge ever since I can remember,” said Work, adding that the disease is a significant cause of waterfowl mortality on Kauai.
Last year, a large outbreak in Hanalei killed more than 300 birds, and last month, a small number of birds turned up dead.
Work said it is important the area continue to be closely monitored.
“We’re concerned about Hanalei because (it) is really the last bastion of genetically pure Koloa (Maoli) ducks,” he said.
Work also discussed the large die-off of Heart sea urchins along Kauai’s southern coast in February 2012.
“Unfortunately, by the time we got called in, it was near the end of the epidemic,” Work said. “So we didn’t really get a lot of specimens.”
In the few specimens he did collect, Work said he saw inflammatory changes in the tissue, but no infectious bacteria or fungi were present.
Work was unable to ever pinpoint the cause of the die-off.
One of Work’s ongoing projects is trying to get to the bottom of a coral disease outbreak along Kauai’s North Shore, first reported by Eyes of the Reef volunteer Terry Lilley last year.
“We’ve never seen this before in any of the other Hawaiian islands,” he said.
In the lab, Work discovered that the disease — now documented at several different sites — is caused by a variety of bacteria eating away the coral tissue.
Work said “the $64,000 question” is why this is happening? It is one he does not have an answer to, but said the ecosystem is trying to tell us something.
If the community feels the outbreak is a serious problem, he said it must do something to help the reef now, such as restoring wetlands and addressing the threats of overfishing and land-based pollution.
By doing so, Work believes the corals have a chance to recover.
“Remember disease is a normal part of an animal population. Everything gets diseases. The problem is epidemic diseases, (like) what we’re seeing in north Kauai.”
While diseases in other animals are significant and deserve attention, Work stressed the importance of maintaining healthy coral reefs, calling them the “rainforests of the sea.”
One of his biggest concerns is making sure the Hawaiian Islands don’t follow in the footsteps of the Caribbean, where 80 percent of the coral has been lost.
“If we lose the corals, the ramifications are astronomical.”
Healthy reefs mean healthy fisheries, and ultimately healthy people, he said.
• Chris D’Angelo, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or lifestyle@thegardenisland.com.
